ProgBlog

The Guardian newspaper occasionally includes a reference to prog - I suspect a couple of the writers are closet fans - but I was surprised when an edition earlier this month had two references: an article about Kate Bush and another about how rock musicians shouldn't have dabbled with disco...

By ProgBlog, Jan 1 2019 05:22PM

2018. A year like no other, with global politics stooping to a new nadir as so-called world leaders lie, cheat and bully their way through life. I’ve always tended towards optimism, which is one of the reasons I have an affinity for progressive rock, but when humanity is fast-approaching the point where man-made climate change is going to have irreversible, accelerated effects on the biosphere and some of the largest economies in the world argue about the wording of a document at the end of the (extended) COP24 Climate Conference in Katowice relating to the implementation of the 2015 Paris agreement, I may have reached my personal tipping point. For the US, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, with tacit encouragement from Australia and Brazil, joining forces to prevent the conference fully embracing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) findings that any warming of above 1.5oC of pre-industrial levels would be disastrous for many species seems criminal to me. As forest fires rage across California and Australia and Japan once again break their local temperature records, it’s time surely for anyone with children or grandchildren to think globally and, at the earliest opportunity, use the ballot box to facilitate change.

The Guardian headline 15 December 2018

Change appears to be the kryptonite of anyone with a vested interest. Colonial expansion allowed Europeans to profit from indigenous mineral wealth with little or no trickle-down benefit for locals (usually the opposite); the dirty energy that fuelled the industrial revolution made a small number of people very rich; the sell-off of former Soviet state industries made a smaller number of people super-wealthy; now our fondness for technology has created an even smaller group of unimaginably rich who are responsible for the way we get our information. I’m not going to deny that there’s no philanthropic disbursement of funds but however well-founded donations are, there’s always a return for the sponsor through free advertising and access to political power, and even something as outwardly benign as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has come under scrutiny for purportedly cornering the market on global health issues. Thanks to some stunning work by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), it has been revealed that the accumulation of wealth by a limited proportion of the global population, including politicians, is driven by self-interest and that they utilise schemes which although falling within the letter of the law, are actually complex constructs to preserve that wealth and ergo, influence or power. The employment of offshore structures is the equivalent of smoke and mirrors, a device to distract and confuse and ultimately avoid transparency; the influence is exerted to avoid regulation, the same red tape that might have prevented the Bhopal disaster, the Sandoz chemical spill, the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the Flint, Michigan water crisis and many others. There’s a salutary lesson here: cutting regulations may save you money, but cutting costs may cost lives.

Climate change appears to be rather low on the UK government’s list of priorities, along with rising homelessness and providing appropriate care for the elderly, those with disabilities and the unwell. Currently paralysed in a mess of her own making, bounded by red lines and surrounded by a party disunited over Europe, the Prime Minister continues to rely on DUP MPs to hold the government together even as she decries almost half of the population who voted to remain in the EU as undemocratic for suggesting a second referendum; her pro-Brexit allies from Northern Ireland don’t actually represent the majority ‘remain’ sentiment to be found in the province but she continues to allow them to hold her to ransom. It’s easy for critics of Jeremy Corbyn to lambast him for not holding Theresa May fully to account for her Brexit bungling but there are some equally pressing issues which, if satisfactorily addressed, might persuade those who voted to leave that their voice is being heard and that there was nothing to gain from leaving the EU. If May had taken more of a consensus approach to work out the best solution for the country and not attempted the impossible, the reconciliation of the pro- and anti-Europe wings of the Conservative party, the UK might not be three months away from the worst possible scenario – no deal.

Extrapolating from what I’ve seen in Prog magazine and in tweets posted by the individuals I follow on Twitter, I imagine that the majority of UK prog musicians are in favour of remaining within the EU. The challenge of restriction to movement throughout Europe effectively putting a kibosh on touring the mainland continent for all but the best resourced bands by erecting barriers to seamless touring not seen since the early 1970s, cutting off a previously accessible market. The reciprocal arrangement will undoubtedly deter artists from some of our former EU partners from gigging in the UK. The following argument could be made by not only anyone who has enjoyed the benefits of cheap intracontinental travel but by NHS senior managers, hoteliers and other owners of hospitality, catering or drinks businesses, even farmers requiring a large seasonal workforce; any restriction or barrier to EU citizens working in the UK is going to have an adverse effect on our daily lives, whether that’s longer waiting times in hospitals, no one to staff care homes for our elderly relatives, food shortages and concomitant rising prices, or just finding it harder to enjoy a night out. Doesn’t that make us look grown-up?

The Brexit-fantasy nostalgia even puts my infatuation with 70’s prog in the shade. I resent the barriers being erected that will inconvenience me on my quest to witness the last few classic progressivo Italiano bands I’ve not yet seen, and flourishing my blue UK passport at the end of a slow-moving immigration queue at Genoa’s Cristoforo Colombo airport isn’t actually something I’m going to feel proud about.

2018 did turn out to be good for one thing; the number of concerts I managed to attend (22) was the most I’ve ever managed in a year; I had thought 2017 was busy with 14 (that’s including two days in Genoa for the Porto Antico Prog Fest and five nights in Rome for the Progressivamente festival.) At times it felt as though I was chasing gigs and was certainly flagging by the end of March. Having recommenced semi-retirement towards the end of 2017, it became easier to take extended weekend breaks so on my return from a midweek skiing trip to Chamonix in early January I discovered that Banco del Mutuo Soccorso had a gig in Brescia the following week which, thanks to its proximity to Milan, made travel arrangements relatively easy.

ProgBlog's list of gigs, 2018

The true gig marathon began on the 23rd March with my second venture to the Fabio Zuffanti-organised Z-Fest in Milan and ended with my first attendance at a Tangerine Dream performance at the Union Chapel, Islington, on 23rd April. Between those dates I got to see Yes at the Palladium, the first of Steven Wilson’s three nights’ residency at the Royal Albert Hall, had a week skiing in Austria after which I dropped off my gear and immediately headed out to the ESP 22 Layers of Sunlight launch party at the Half Moon, Putney, and flew off to Brescia again, this time for another classic Italian prog band, Le Orme, who were augmented by David Cross on violin. The complexities of getting back the hotel from some of these Italian venues can be something of a logistical nightmare after public transport has shut down for the night. Walking the streets of Genoa after a show poses no threat when the club or theatre is in the heart of the city but the 11km between L’ Angelo Azzurro and the NH Genova Centro, though only a 90 minute walk at most, might not be the best idea at 2am. I am deeply indebted to Marina Montobbio for arranging my lift back from an excellent gig. BMS at Brescia would have been less problematic if I hadn’t followed my wife’s instructions not to use public transport to get back to our hotel. Circolo Colony, the venue for the show, was hidden away on an industrial estate about 20 minutes walk from the light rail terminus to the east of the city. Though the last train was scheduled for 1am, the walk to the station would have involved a section behind the Armco protection from a dual carriageway, so I was told to get a taxi. I had pre-programmed a mobile phone app to get my return cab but despatch phoned me to tell me nothing was available at the time I requested, 00:45am, and the last taxi was at midnight. Apart from missing a chunk of the BMS set, I had to hang around the car park for almost half an hour and had to phone the company to ask where the driver was. When he appeared, it turned out that he was familiar with progressive rock so the journey back to the hotel wasn’t unpleasant. On my return to the city three months later I’d worked out not to bother trying to pre-book a return taxi journey. I made a note of where the taxi dropped me off on the way to the Brixia Forum, returned to that spot at the conclusion of the performance, and called a taxi; mine was the third to arrive. As a result of making the trip for the BMS gig, I was able to explore more of Italy. I really like Brescia with its three record stores (special mention has to go to Kandinski, Via Tartaglia 49c, 25100 Brescia) but it also hosts a UNESCO World Heritage site and the railway provides easy access to other cities including Cremona, and to Lake Garda.

While the variety of live events I attended spanned the inaugural local electronica festival (part three of Palace Electrics was held at Antenna Studios, Crystal Palace and included an interpretation of Steve Reich’s Pendulum Music) to Camel at the Royal Albert Hall and the fabulous Lucca Summer Festival for an outdoor experience of King Crimson, I was also being exposed to a lot more music that I’d describe as being outside my comfort zone. Requests for me to review new music, which came from all parts of the prog spectrum, led to the creation of a new section on the ProgBlog website, DISCovery, which had the aim of exposing new artists to a wider audience. So far it has featured a diverse range of styles including classic Floyd-like soundscape prog, pop-prog, prog with a metal bias, and RIO-inflicted free jazz.

I hope that my contribution to the prog world, however small, inspires someone to go out and explore, whether that’s just the sonic adventure of trying something new or a geographical quest to unearth the inspiration behind the music, where an understanding of physical and cultural artefacts help to piece the world together. 2019 certainly needs everyone to display a little more understanding.

By ProgBlog, Jul 9 2018 04:58PM

Britain’s National Health Service celebrated its 70th anniversary last week, having come into effect on July 5th 1948. Despite a relatively limited personal use of the Service with only one hospital stay for overnight observation following a head injury sustained during a mountaineering accident in the Lake District in 1976, and continued checks in the ophthalmology department to monitor for trauma-induced glaucoma after being hit by a squash ball in the eye in 2007, it’s good to know that a comprehensive health service, free at the point of delivery for everyone, exists in the UK. Sadly, free universal and comprehensive healthcare in the UK has been under attack for much of the last 40 years, even when Blair’s New Labour was increasing health spending by an average 5.4% per year, selling the public the idea of new hospitals (and other major projects) but actually committing the coffers in the public purse to fatally flawed PPI ventures from which hospitals in particular continue to suffer.

It’s widely remarked that the NHS has a special place in the hearts of British citizens although it’s always been highly politicised. Conceived by health minister Aneurin Bevan and introduced by Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour government, there was considerable opposition to the scheme amongst those with vested interests. Many doctors did not want to become employees of the government; hospital consultants wanted to continue to charge private patients for treatment and 64% of GPs opposed the NHS, preferring to treat patients privately, leading to the BMA to organise a campaign to ‘boot out Bevan’. Even nurses were against the plan, as it threatened their income from private family visits. Bevan finally won round doctors with the promise of new hospitals and badly needed equipment but significantly also agreed to allow doctors to continue to treat private patients in addition to their NHS work.

NHS 60th anniversary edition of Bevan's In Place of Fear

The Principles of the NHS:

Universal Access: The NHS was for all

Comprehensive: The NHS would treat all medical conditions. Doctors, dentists, opticians and hospital treatments would all form part of the service

Free at the point of need: Patients would not pay for treatment

The new NHS was to be paid for out of National Insurance contributions and would provide free medical services for all

Ambulance services were set up to cope with emergencies

I’ve been involved the service since 1981, one of the behind-the-scenes staff in a laboratory. Initially employed by the National Blood Transfusion Service immediately after graduation, within five years I’d expressed a few hundred litres of plasma from whole blood, pooled platelets, washed blood, made clotting factors VIII and IX, provided reagents derived from blood donations to hospitals in the South East, screened ante natal blood for antibodies to prevent haemolytic disease of the newborn and selected and crossmatched units of blood for patients requiring transfusion. I was working there in 1983 the virus responsible for AIDS was independently discovered by Gallo in the US and Barré-Sinoussi/Montagnier in France, naming the novel retrovirus HTLV-III and LAV respectively, before it became known as HIV in 1986 and, to reflect the importance of that discovery, changed the name of the band I was in at that time to HTLV-III.

In 1984 I moved to the section that covered bone marrow transplantation but after a successful two years in that post, I was told I was to be moved to a different department. Fortunately my predecessor, who had left to join the kidney transplant team at Charing Cross Hospital, was moving on again to Scotland; I applied for and was appointed to fill that vacancy, delivering a leaving party speech that criticised the management of the Transfusion Centre for virtually forcing me out. It’s satisfying but disappointing that things got much worse there after I left, all due to poor strategic decisions, in search of ‘efficiencies’.

The lab at Charing Cross was small and friendly and though much of the work was for renal transplants, we were actually part of Rheumatology. It’s good to have a different perspective and meeting professionals from other disciplines helped me see healthcare from a holistic point of view. With rumours of a pathology reorganisation circulating in 1988, a post at Guy’s Hospital offering research potential and an annual international conference proved too good to resist.

The Guy’s lab had something of a mixed reputation when I joined but within a couple of years we started to make some astute personnel changes and began to build up one of the most successful renal transplant teams in the UK, no longer treated as just a laboratory but sharing expertise with the medical and nursing teams.

The Conservatives introduced the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990 which created an ‘internal market’ for the supply of healthcare so that the state would no longer be the main provider, but act more as an enabler, forcing local authorities to assess people for social care and support to determine a patient’s requirements and to purchase the care from providers – the new NHS Trusts. Guy’s and Lewisham joined forces and became the Tories’ flagship Trust but hospital reorganisation in London, to make the service yet more efficient, meant that the Guy’s – Lewisham partnership was dissolved and Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, complete with a level of autonomy from the Department of Health, was created in 1993. A few years before, Guy’s had been singled out for major improvement, what was to have been the £140m Philip Harris House, a state-of-the-art seven storey wing designed to be conducive to effective healthcare. However, the inexplicable transfer of acute services to St Thomas’ Hospital, considered by many to have been a political move disguised by that reorganisation (Tommies was in a parlous state before the formation of the Foundation Trust) led to Philip Harris, a carpet magnate and Conservative Party donor withholding his £6 million from the project; the building sat empty for some time before being reassigned for outpatient services and some research facilities under the name of Thomas Guy House.

The creation of NHS Trusts immediately increased the running costs of a hospital because of the number of managers required to oversee the internal market and to control budgets. Cutting waste and making efficiencies has long been the mantra of officials but they failed to see the hypocrisy of paying management consultancies huge sums of money to produce reports to validate decisions made by hospital boards to circumvent discussion. This continued after Blair replaced John Major as PM in an attempt to show the public that New Labour was both a prudent manager of the public purse and that it was business-friendly. The machinations of GSTT managers or ministers in the Department of Health didn’t impact on me directly until 2008 when, encouraged by a government which delighted in ‘a third way’ but based on poor data collected pre-2006 for the Carter Report, it was proposed that pathology at Guy’s and St Thomas’ (also to include Bedford Hospital) should be part-privatised in a joint venture between the hospitals and outsourcing darlings Serco. Despite opposition from staff throughout the hospital and sympathy from the chair of the board of governors, the Joint Venture commenced operating under the title of GSTS Pathology on January 1st 2009 so, to ensure I couldn’t be singled out for my outspoken opposition to this development, I became a union representative and campaigned vigorously to stop all forms of NHS privatisation and the unfair treatment of staff.

Protesting against the privatisation of Pharmacy by Sainsbury's

GSTT was at the forefront of removing staff from its books through a series of privatisations; Pathology, the Post Room, Pharmacy, seemingly simultaneously oblivious to the wishes of staff and mounting evidence to show that in fact, privatisation was a contributory factor in declining standards of delivery of care. When the coalition government was formed in 2010 they quickly revealed a major shake-up in the provision of healthcare, Andrew Lansley’s Health and Social Care Bill (enacted in 2012), despite a Conservative manifesto pledge that there would be no NHS reorganisation. Now largely scrapped though still adversely affecting the NHS, other changes to public sector pensions and terms and conditions of work introduced by the coalition shortly after they came to power were part of a strategy to entice private sector providers to take over services; unfortunately the strategy worked, but not without seriously affecting provision of comprehensive, universal healthcare (according to a report by the NHS Support Federation, £7.1bn worth of NHS clinical contracts were awarded through an NHS tendering process in the year up to April 2017.) The changes were sold to the public as being necessary in an age of austerity but the government was defending its friends and the failed ideology that caused the collapse of the global financial system in 2008; George Osborne’s imposition of austerity measures to eradicate the budget deficit was really another strategy to break up any power remaining in the hands of the state and politicians and economists alike have criticised the approach, which is responsible for a continuing weak, low-growth economy.

On the occasion of the NHS’s 63rd birthday, I predicted that unless there was a change in administration, it would barely make it to 68. Fortunately I was wrong, though how it managed to survive the last three winter crises and a lengthy doctor’s strike is a miracle. It appears that the cuts to NHS funding have now been stopped but there’s still insufficient movement on the investment required for integrating health and social services. However much money we put into health is never going to be enough but it’s pleasing to see that the British public would accept a tax rise for the NHS. Bevan’s guiding principles for the service illustrate a willingness to eradicate inequality and what he founded may stand as the highest achievement for social democracy. To ensure his legacy continues to have a future we need to recognise the value of everyone who plays a role in healthcare provision, from the cleaners and the porters and post room staff and catering staff upwards. Jeremy Corbyn’s recent call to end the NHS internal market is also a key move, as competition between providers is likely to lead to unrealistic tenders, an uneven provision of care or a diminution of quality; the Lansley Act had the detrimental effect of splitting effective care pathways and raising costs through inefficiency.

I left Viapath (the re-branded GSTS Pathology) in 2015 to restart as an NHS employee in a different NHS Trust. Despite a national celebration of the service on its 70th birthday, I didn’t join in because the cheerleaders for the day, the higher managers who sanction privatisation of services and impose punitive sickness policies were handing out free muffins to all staff... The passion that many millions share for the NHS, despite its shortcomings, is the reason it’s still going and anyone who cares to can check that it ranks very highly on efficiency and social equity; the US with its private insurance-based system favoured by some of the more right-wing members of the Conservative party, spends far more on health per person with poorer and dreadfully inequitable outcomes.

So what’s the NHS got to do with progressive rock? Apart from the excellent band National Health (see ProgBlog’s February 2014 post National Health), it’s about the prevailing social conditions in the late 60s and the notion of equity of access; the founding of the NHS is one of the defining features of advanced social democracy, along with the provision of decent social housing, and opened the door for further democratising movements like access to higher education for students from all backgrounds. The prime movers in progressive rock appealed to the burgeoning student groups but also envisioned a better world and even attempted to challenge accepted norms through bridging the two worlds of high- and popular culture; I don’t believe that progressive rock would have developed in Britain in the same way if we’d not already made moves to make society more equal.

So the next challenge is to see how the NHS fares post-Brexit, but I agree with the words attributed to Bevan: the NHS will last as long as there’s folk with faith left to fight for it.

By ProgBlog, Aug 13 2017 09:44PM

Canterbury Cathedral

A cultural hot-spot in the middle of a largely agricultural county, (Kent was, up until 2006 when it was deposed by North Yorkshire, described as ‘the Garden of England’ thanks to a dish of Kentish cherries which particularly satisfied King Henry VIII) Canterbury is a city of surprises. Since geography lessons in the early 70s I had always assumed that the description ‘Garden of England’ was associated with agricultural output but the criteria now applied are much wider than the initial fame for orchards and allotments which won Kent its title. They now include scenery, hidden corners, village traditions and the variety of wildlife and Kent has lost its place because of perceived congestion, pollution and the adverse affects of over-building, plus a derogatory view of young, less-well off fashion slaves who, it is alleged, first appeared in Chatham; even the Channel tunnel rail link was considered to be a negative factor.

Most recently and dramatically, this provincial city which had returned a Conservative MP since the constituency was created in 1918 (prior to that it was the Canterbury borough where up until 1885 there were two seats) elected a Labour MP, Rosie Duffield, with a 45% share of the vote. Duffield ousted sitting MP of 30 years, Sir Julian Brazier by 187 votes. This stunning victory was due to two factors, the candidate herself who seems genuinely liked by the constituents, and the student vote – Canterbury is a university city and young people have been reconnected with politics thanks to Jeremy Corbyn’s vision that there is a viable, alternative way of running the country. The promise of ending tuition fees was seen by some as a bribe but it’s clear that the current system for student finance is working neither for the students nor the loans company itself, with half of all students unlikely to pay back their loan in full and it has been argued by people like Peter Scott, professor of higher education studies at the Institute of Education and former vice-chancellor of Kingston University, that ending student tuition fees makes both economic and social sense. Furthermore, reneging on the promise would have been electoral suicide for Corbyn; does anyone remember Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems? A member of the public interviewed after the 2017 general election said that she never thought of Canterbury as a Conservative city and that her vote was vindicated, yet every other constituency in Kent has a Conservative MP and Canterbury is home to the Church of England.

It doesn’t have the feel of an especially devout place, either. There are probably more tourists on a pilgrimage to the shops, now that Sterling is so weak against the Euro, than there are who come to see the site of the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket, though the 11th Century cathedral, the ruins of St Augustine’s Abbey and St Martin’s Church, all part of a UNESCO World Heritage site are destinations worth seeking out for history and atmosphere. It’s not just the trainloads of schoolchildren arriving from France with matching laminated lanyards, part of the attraction of Canterbury is that is has an outward-looking vibe, welcoming everyone. The student adoption of Corbyn ideals fits nicely with this openness and even outside of university terms, the city feels surprisingly young.

Canterbury is of course the city associated with a particular sub-genre of progressive rock though some of the participants deny that such a construct really existed. What can’t be denied is that Soft Machine and Caravan were formed there and that Gong also has its roots in Canterbury. Original Soft Machine drummer Robert Wyatt knew Mike Ratledge, Kevin Ayers and Brian and Hugh Hopper through the Simon Langton School; Dave Sinclair also attended the school; and Daevid Allen lodged at Wyatt’s parents’ house near Canterbury. The forerunner of Soft Machine and Caravan was The Wilde Flowers, where the collective of musicians included Pye Hastings (Ayers went out with Hastings’ sister Jane); Richard Sinclair (who became friends with the Hoppers when they went to see Sinclair Sr. play in his jazz band); and Richard Coughlan (who was introduced to Hugh Hopper via a mutual friend in the Sea Cadets.) Egg (Dave Stewart, Mont Campbell and Clive Brooks) are classed as a Canterbury band despite having formed as Uriel when at the City of London School, along with fellow pupil Steve Hillage. When Hillage left to go to the University of Kent (at Canterbury) Uriel continued as a trio, got a record deal and were encouraged to change their name. The organ-heavy material has little in common with Caravan, though the overdriven keyboards do at times come into Soft Machine territory, but that’s hardly surprising since Stewart has acknowledged Ratledge as an influence. The psychedelia, whimsy and humour seemingly shared by Egg with the other two groups, was more a product of the times though they did share an interest in odd time signatures. Hillage would later join Gong (1973-75) for some of their most coherent material, having disbanded his own group Khan and played with Kevin Ayers in Decadence, appearing on Gong’s classic Radio Gnome trilogy.

If there is a Canterbury scene, then Hatfield and the North surely fit in, the result of a number of intertwining band histories. Well away from that geographical area of Canterbury, Delivery was formed in 1967 featuring Phil Miller on guitar, his brother Steve Miller on piano, Pip Pyle on drums, Jack Monck on bass and Carol Grimes on vocals. Steve Miller would replace Dave Sinclair in Caravan for Waterloo Lily (1972) and Phil Miller, who was a guest musician on Waterloo Lily joined Robert Wyatt in his post-Soft Machine Matching Mole, a band that originally included Dave Sinclair on keyboards; Wyatt introduced Pyle to Daevid Allen and the drummer went off to live and gig with Gong from 1971 to 1972.

The Hatfields first convened in 1972 and comprised Phil Miller, Pip Pyle, Dave and Richard Sinclair but the band only played a couple of gigs before Dave Sinclair left, deciding that he wasn’t best suited to lack of structure. His replacement, Dave Stewart, fitted perfectly and their two albums, the self-titled debut (1973) and The Rotters’ Club (1974) are both excellent examples of progressive rock tinged with complexity and jazz sensibility, and presented with a madcap humour. Tricky time signatures and nice melodic moments are linked together by Sinclair’s ever-so-English vocals; a collective of incredible writing skills from all four members. The branches of this scene spread out to a remarkable array of other musicians and groups, including Bill Bruford, Camel, Henry Cow and Mike Oldfield, none of which should be classed as part of the Canterbury sub-genre but which display links back to a fertile source of inspiration and musicianship.

It’s been a couple of years since I was last in the city and there’s noticeable change. My first shopping visit in 2007 (I had been a few times before that for meetings at the hospital) included a stop at the Fopp record store where I picked up two Syd Barratt CDs, and a stall in the indoor market where the owner had connections with the original Canterbury bands and I bought Hugh Hopper’s Two Rainbows Daily (with Alan Gowen) and Numero d’Vol on CD; by the time of my next visit, Fopp had gone into liquidation and had been replaced by an HMV and the indoor market stall had closed down so subsequent trips tended to focus on non-musical shopping and the odd bit of tourist activity. The difference this time was that I’d checked for record stores and their opening hours and found three I’d not previously been aware of. First stop was Vinylstore Jr (http://www.vinylstorejr.co.uk/), a new vinyl-only shop in Castle Street (which is close to Canterbury East railway station) which concentrates on new issue LPs but does have a small second-hand section.

It’s run by a very pleasant, helpful and knowledgeable chap called Nick who recognised the difficulty of providing a dedicated ‘Canterbury’ section in a shop selling new vinyl; there appear to be only two Caravan albums which have been rereleased as an LP, In the Land of Grey and Pink (the 40th anniversary edition remastered by Steven Wilson from 2011 which is actually a double LP with bonus tracks), and If I Could do it Again, I’d do it All Over You. The former was a limited pressing and there can’t be many available now and the latter is on the 4 Men with Beards label in the US (catalogue no. 4M239). There are reissues of a few Soft Machine albums on vinyl commencing in 2010, including the self-titled first album, Second and Third. I indulged in the latest Roger Waters album Is this the Life we Really Want? plus a 2017 reissue of On An On by a much more recent Canterbury-based band, Syd Arthur; Sound Mirrors and Apricity were also available. This quartet, now comprised of three Magill brothers and Raven Bush play mostly short, always intelligent and intricate songs washed with a gentle psychedelia which at times do call to mind Canterbury bands of the late 60s and 70s. The closest On An On comes to progressive rock (the group won the Prog Breakthrough Act award in 2014) is the rather wonderful Paradise Lost. After explaining to him the sort of music I liked, Nick pointed out one album and suggested that I listen to Melbourne psyche band King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard latest release, Murder of the Universe. He was right that it’s more proggy than their previous work but it’s still a little too straight psyche for my taste.

Second stop was the almost all second-hand Soundz ‘n’ Sitez in St Peter’s Street, the main thoroughfare through the city heading towards the Westgate. Run by Paul and Jayson, the shop is absolutely rammed with crates of albums and a small comic collection, retained from the store’s previous incarnation, but still no dedicated section for ‘Canterbury’. It turns out that they knew the former stall-holder from the indoor market, Dave Radford, and that Radford used to be in a Canterbury prog band called Gizmo... ...and Gizmo had released a couple of albums in the past five years, a self-titled effort in 2012 and Marlowe’s Children, part 1: The Innocence from 2015. The band had also covered Van der Graaf Generator's House with No Door for a Mellow Records compilation. Available on two formats in the shop, I chose the limited edition Gizmo on vinyl. The shop has attracted a few famous visitors including Rick Wakeman, in town for a gig, who ventured in and signed some records.

The third stop was a like walking into a slice of history. Canterbury Rock has been around since around 1979 and is run by Jim, a former council gardener and Fairport Convention fan, even though this was the first time I’d managed to find it, out beyond Canterbury West station. The shop has second-hand records, CDs, DVDs and audio equipment and has housed small musical events. If you were fussy you might think the place shabby, but its collection of posters and memorabilia from all genres, none of which is for sale, provides a unique documentary of popular music from the 60s onwards. There are some treasures which remain out-of-sight, but if you engage Jim in conversation he’ll tell you some brilliant stories. The Sinclairs lived around the corner, and when I’d handed over my money for a couple of LPs, he showed me a rather unusual, slightly battered copy of Soft Machine’s Third, hidden somewhere behind the counter. Pasted inside was a Simon Langton School photo, with an arrow linking the sleeve photo of Mike Ratledge to a young Mike Ratledge in the school photograph.

Jim, if you read this, your website link doesn’t work.

This means there’s now a different reason to make the pilgrimage to Canterbury; three excellent independent record stores which cover subtly different markets. Some of the other touristy bits aren’t too bad either.

By ProgBlog, Jun 11 2017 05:59PM

The UK has been gripped by the general election over the last week, somewhat surprisingly when it appeared that the electorate was completely battered by a spate of recent polls: The Scottish Independence referendum; the 2015 general election; the EU referendum; then the somewhat unnecessary call for a stronger mandate to bolster Theresa May’s negotiating hand for our exit from the EU. Yet, on Friday as I prepared to go for work, there was an indication that the world of politics may never be the same again as the results indicated a hung parliament and a good number of seats gained by the Labour Party, including mine in Croydon Central. Seven weeks ago there was a tacit understanding, promoted by almost all mainstream media, that Labour faced annihilation and that Jeremy Corbyn would be personally responsible for the wipe-out at the ballot box. However, on that morning commentators and a large proportion of the Parliamentary Labour Party had to admit just how wrong they’d been; though Labour didn’t get more seats than the Tories it was widely recognised that in overseeing a net gain of 32 seats, including positive results in Conservative heartlands such as Canterbury and Kensington, Corbyn had emerged as the biggest winner of the previous night.

Croydon Central. Photo: Chris Gorman www.standard.co.uk

At the start of the campaign, the contradictory behaviour of May, parroting that she was ‘strong and stable’ while embarking on a series of damaging U-turns seemed to be sufficient to dispel any vestiges of interest in politics in all but the politicians themselves, numbed as we were by the inane slogans of a political class which frequently put itself before the constituents. The gap in the polls between the two main parties was running at over 20 points, leading to the conclusion that May was calling the election, already with a working majority, for simple political gain. Despite the backing of media moguls and big business, however much money was thrown at the Tory campaign it was insufficient to hide May’s innate deficiencies. Badly advised and playing to vested interests, and projecting many of the damning qualities she accused the Labour leadership of possessing, her presidential-style campaign came unstuck with her refusal to debate head-to-head, the catalogue of changes in policy, a lack of empathy towards struggling working people, plus her dismal record as Home Secretary as she sought to pin the blame for the murderous attacks in Manchester and London on ‘terrorist sympathisers’ leading the opposition.

Meanwhile, Corbyn did what he does best; take his campaigning style out around the UK. Helped by the most socialist manifesto for a generation, one which had been agreed by the PLP, he sent out a message of hope and a rejection of seven years of failed neo-liberal economics. If anything, the manifesto was a little too cautious for me but I understood that the Labour document would undergo more forensic scrutiny than anything produced by the incumbents; fortunately for Labour, the Tories relied on their (entirely unwarranted) reputation for sensible fiscal management and didn’t bother to properly cost their programme, thus revealing a deep disdain for the voting public. The trend for the poll gap to close in some surveys, attributed to Corbyn’s message of hope to the young, was also dismissed as being of little concern because of the perceived notion that young people wouldn’t bother to turn out to vote.

The other misplaced presumption was that UKIP votes, even those from former Labour supporters would end up with Conservative candidates. This worried many prospective Labour MPs in the north, in Wales and the Midlands where they believed that Corbyn was responsible for alienating voters. What I already knew and what people saw following the announcement of the election, was that when seen outside of the bear-pit of the House of Commons with its turn-off adversarial politics, a game Corbyn was unhappy playing, he went down very well with thousands of people all around the country and, when reported on the news outside the prism of normal parliamentary coverage, millions more could hear his message of hope and positivity and witness his inclusivity. It became obvious, rather quickly, that he wasn’t a monster with fringe ideas dedicated to destroying the UK but quite the opposite; he wanted a fairer system where those who could afford to, paid a bit more tax and through investment, wealth was better distributed and services were resumed for the benefit of all.

I became politically active when Andrew Lansley proposed his Health and Social Care Bill after the formation of the coalition government in 2010. This was something that didn’t even feature in the Conservative manifesto at the time but, because of its swift introduction, it had evidently been pre-planned and I could see that it spelt out the certain break-up of the NHS. Over the following years I marched, sat down in the middle of Westminster Bridge for an hour or two and made connections with like-minded individuals. The highlight of this time was giving a short address to a crowded Central Hall, Westminster, about the threat of privatisation in the NHS. I’d just organised a ‘Hands Around St Thomas’ Hospital’ event, held opposite Parliament during some of the most dreadful spring weather imaginable and Jeremy Corbyn was one of the only MPs to attend; then, when I’d given my speech, John McDonnell approached me to say how much he enjoyed what I’d said.

The drift towards an acceptance that austerity was the only possible answer to the global crash of 2008 was simply the will of large corporations who wanted to carry on as normal. Politicians, possibly fearing the wrath of vested interests, went along with this because the alternative narrative required a shift to economics proposed by the left and a refutation of centrist social democracy so ironically, it was Labour who saved neo-liberalism. The coalition inherited an economy that had begun to shows signs of recovery but, following the dogma that decried the requirement for any form of state control, they imposed a wage cap on the public sector and began a series of cuts to services which hit the poor, the ill and the young while cementing the lifestyle of the top earners. The downward pressure on wages of already low-earners in an economy dominated by the service industries provided one of the sources of anti-immigrant sentiment; another was a chronic shortage of appropriate housing stock. No one in a position of power had the will to challenge the causes of this tension because this too would have upset the orthodoxy. Instead, we witnessed the return of slum landlords and an increase in top-end properties bought by foreign investors who never set foot in their purchases; the divide between haves and have nots got ever wider and resentment simmered in former industrial heartlands, stoked by the multimillionaire proprietors of The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Daily Express and The DailyTelegraph and the people ignored by Westminster.

This election result changed all that. Originally deeply despairing of the Labour leadership, fuelled by the difference in opinion of the members and the PLP, The Guardian came round to supporting Labour following the publication of their manifesto. The contrast between Labour and Conservative became quite stark: positivity vs. fear and negativity; concern for social justice vs. conceited indifference and, crucially; discipline vs. chaos. Even after the exit poll at 10pm on Thursday there were still some Labour MPs who doubted. Of the imagined carnage, they only lost five seats but gained 37; the Conservatives lost 33 seats and gained 20, losing the parliamentary majority they held before the election. May’s Brexit-election gamble backfired spectacularly. Winner? Hardly!

Jeremy Corbyn may be an unorthodox leader but his sincerity and willingness to listen in a world where shouting loudest (including electronically) and acting strong were formerly seen as important traits, has enabled him to rewrite the rules. Brexit may have been a tussle between the Conservatives and an irrelevant UKIP but 40% of the voting public had much more to worry about and Labour has the best answers to their problems. I’m looking forward to the Conservative-DUP deal coming unstuck – bring on the next general election!

By ProgBlog, Jun 12 2016 09:24PM

I remember the UK joining the EEC in 1973 better than I remember the last time the UK took place in a European referendum on the 5th June 1975. During an Art lesson at the time we joined the Common Market, we were given the task of illustrating the event and though my family quite happily discussed issues that laid the foundation for my own political awakening, I don’t recall how they voted in the 1975 plebiscite.

The first half of 1975 was relatively quiet for releases from major progressive rock acts. In April Camel released Music Inspired by the Snow Goose and Hatfield and the North released The Rotter’s Club the previous month but it wasn’t until late summer into autumn that the floodgates opened and Caravan finally managed to get an album in the charts with Cunning Stunts; Gentle Giant released the accessible Free Hand; Quiet Sun put out the phenomenal, off-beat Mainstream; Pink Floyd returned from hiatus with Wish You Were Here; Jethro Tull released the under-rated Minstrel in the Gallery; Steve Hackett embarked on his first solo venture, albeit with help from a number of his band mates, Voyage of the Acolyte; Van der Graaf Generator mark II announced their reformation with Godbluff; Chris Squire became the first of the Yes alumni to release a solo album during their break from band duties with Fish out of Water; and Vangelis, who had sparked our interest because of headlines linking him with Yes after the departure of Rick Wakeman in 1974, put out Heaven and Hell. Focus rounded off the year with Mother Focus, a departure from the symphonic prog of Hamburger Concerto, veering into pop and funk territory, considered by many to be disappointingly sub-standard.

With the exception of Wish You Were Here and Fish out of Water, I didn’t buy any of the albums listed above at the time of their release due to a combination of lack of funds and a lack of willingness to take a punt when I’d only heard excerpts on the radio. I’ve yet to commit to a copy of Cunning Stunts. When I did buy an LP it was catching up with a release from earlier in the progressive rock timeline, including the compilation Yesterdays which really counts as the first Yes retrospective, no doubt issued (in February 1975) to maintain interest in the group as they all took time off to explore solo ventures. I thought it was a decent way of acquiring some of their early material, plus a muscular, prog version of Simon and Garfunkel’s America, for half the price of the first two studio albums. Another two albums that I did buy when they first came out were Rubycon by Tangerine Dream and Rick Wakeman’s Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, from March and April 1975 respectively. I hadn’t bought Journey to the Centre of the Earth, having been put off by the vocals but I thought the singing on Arthur was better and Wakeman’s song writing had improved, though not to the standard of the musical vignettes on the entirely instrumental The Six Wives of Henry VIII. Also, as much as I approved of Jules Verne’s proto-science fiction, I was much more familiar with Arthurian legends. Rubycon continued on from where Phaedra had left off and at the time I was very much in favour of keyboard-drenched sojourns into outer and inner space and the amorphous washes from Tangerine Dream, coupled with the sequencer pulses weaving and morphing in and out of the synthesizer, organ and Mellotron drones chimed with my interest in sonic exploration.

Whereas I’d heard of bands like Amon Düül, Kraftwerk and, thanks to the marketing gurus at Virgin Records selling The Faust Tapes for 49p, Faust, of all the German bands I only really liked Tangerine Dream; that was until late summer when Triumvirat released Spartacus and, after hearing March to the Eternal City on Alan Freeman's radio show, I went out and bought the album. Whereas most of the album is stylistically analogous to Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s Karn Evil 9,March to the Eternal City hints of ELP but is obviously Triumvirat. This is the best track on the album thanks to the lyrics which sound as though they could be telling some future tale, “they carry missile and spear”, like a storyline from the comic strip The Trigan Empire; the other words are a bit schoolboy-ish and naive.

It was early in 1975 was when I discovered Premiata Forneria Marcon (PFM) when friend Bill Burford bought Chocolate Kings and live cut Cook, and a Europe-wide take on the progressive rock super-genre began to reveal itself with other musicians and bands joining the movement, one that still seemed very much rooted in the original ideals. This time of progressive rock coincided with the death of Franco in Spain and the beginning of the transition to democracy and Greece only emerged from a military junta the previous year, 1974.

Fast forward to 2016 and Europe seems to be doing its best to tear itself apart. Southern states have been most badly affected by austerity and though it’s been easy for those in power to deflect the blame from the banks that caused the financial crisis in 2008, it has resulted in an abandonment of belief in the political system. Those on the Right blame immigration for their economic outlook while those on the Left decry inflexible centrists for imposing austerity on their countries. So far, the far Right have been kept from power but the frightening prospect of Golden Dawn in Greece, a violent party that took third place in elections in 2015 or France’s Marine Le Pen or, even more recently, of Norbert Hofer from the Freedom Party who was narrowly defeated by the socialist Alexander Van der Bellen in this year’s Austrian Presidential election, being elected to run their country is a serious cause for concern because their insular point of view and populist nationalism is a breeding ground for hatred and violence and threatens genuine democracy through clamping down on freedom of speech. Our very own UKIP operates under the guise of respectability but a series of interventions by party officials shows how nasty they really are, trading on fear, lies and the politics of hatred. Wars in Africa and the Middle East have created a massive migrant crisis as refugees risk their lives in the flight from their own countries towards what they believe to be the safety of the West, landing in Italy and Greece, creating perfect conditions for the rise of anti-immigrant sympathies.

It seems to me that the UK referendum on our membership of the EU, a political gamble by David Cameron that was always destined to fail, has been reduced to the level of a playground brawl with each side calling each other names and, despite those who wish to remain talking up doom scenarios and those who wish to leave having no idea of how the country will fare outside of the EU, this has become a referendum on immigration. Those in favour of leaving imagine they are going to take control of our borders. Could they remind themselves how many Syrian refugees the UK has taken in? That was 1,602 at the end of March this year. What an amazing response to a humanitarian crisis! According to Nigel Farage, controlling immigration is restricting the movement of Europeans into the UK complaining of the stress placed upon housing, jobs and the NHS but allowing an undisclosed number of Commonwealth citizens to come to the UK. It’s hard to believe he can get away with such hypocrisy but the 24 hour media cover concentrates on ‘blue on blue’ attacks and making up non-stories about Jeremy Corbyn.

It would be nice if someone broadcast the message that it’s not immigrants who put strain on public services, but ideological austerity and the deliberate dogmatic shrinking of the State. No one has said there’s not enough room in the country. There aren’t enough hospital beds, teachers and affordable houses or public transport because this government, and those before, have pursued policies of enriching the few and penalising those on low and middle incomes, welcoming foreign investment in luxury developments but leaving flats empty, under-occupied and pushing house prices beyond the means of a major proportion of the population, slashing the salaries of healthcare workers and teachers through public-sector pay freezes and pension changes and forcing low paid private sector employees into zero hour contracts. Please don’t think that education, health, housing, jobs and transport would be better if we leave the EU – those advocating leave are equally responsible for the state of the country with their private healthcare directorships and money secreted away in tax havens.

Progressive rock espoused the benefits of external influences and embraced the nascent green movement. I’m not suggesting that there’s nothing wrong with the EU but the UK will not be able to face up to global challenges like climate change on its own. This means the abandonment of austerity and offering more, better targeted training and rejecting xenophobia. Let’s do it with help from our EU partners.